Ahmedabad: Civic body yet to begin work on 'single-use plastic' ban

A week after the direction of the state government, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has still not taken any action over the ban on single-use plastic. The civic body on March 8, 2019, admitted before the state government and Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) that they will ban single-use plastic in the city.

However, so far, no action has been taken on the same line. On the other hand, the Solid Waste Management Department has collected more than 1200 kg of banned plastic from the city last month.

"Single-use plastic like straw, glass, plastic spoons and fork even some pouches will be banned. We have started with some big food chains already. It will take some time to launch a full-fledged campaign," said Harshad Solanki, director solid waste management, AMC.

"Meanwhile, we are keeping a tab on the usage of banned plastic. Last week we have sealed two plastic manufacturing units in Odhav who were producing banned material. We have seized 1236 kg of banned plastic in last one month," the officer added.

Under the banned plastic waste drive, the department has inspected 13,278 units and had served notice to 7447. They have levied a charge of Rs50 lakh from the commercial units who were found with the banned items.

On Friday, the health department of the civic body has served notices to 94 restaurants and food chains and asked them to stop usage of banned plastic. The estate department had seized 8 kg of plastic bags from the street vendors.

To prevent the usage of inferior quality plastic, different teams of the civic body are reaching out to the mass. "Our teams are going to parks, malls, markets and public gathering places and asking people to stop usage of the banned items." added Solanki.